Cécile Branco

An interview with the Director of Sustainability at La Maison Simons, who was the founder and director of Fabrique 1840, an online store for craftspeople, artisans and makers.

What is your job title and description?

I’m now the Director of Sustainability for Simons, but until recently I was the founder and director of Fabrique 1840, where my objective was to build an online platform for artists. I had to create a business model and develop all the structures around it. I also needed to research new designers and products, so I had to create a vision. Not everyone can sell on Fabrique 1840. It’s a curated platform and we had to build our brand identity through the objects we selected. We had to ensure a diversity of trades and techniques and make sure that different regions were represented — and all of this had to adhere to the esthetic that we developed. 

How do you describe your work?

Fabrique 1840 doesn't operate like other departments at Simons. I had to work with different departments to design and implement new project management strategies. The design and management of the structure was a large part of what I was doing. 

I worked with the IT team a lot to improve the technology that we were using. Since it was something that we had designed from scratch, a lot of time was spent listening to people and responding to their needs as we streamlined the technology. So a lot of responding to emails and phone calls — sometimes it was about invoices, other times following up on image resolution or chasing down product information. Besides this, I was researching and selecting new artisans and onboarding their products.

What career/educational path did you take to get here?

I attended McGill University, where I majored in political science and minored in social innovation. Afterwards, I completed a masters in social innovation at École des hautes études commerciales de Montréal (HEC Montréal). As I was finishing my undergrad, during one of my classes in social innovation, we had to create an economic diversification plan for a rural community, and we chose to work with Lac-Mégantic, which was recovering from the horrific train tragedy in 2013. It was there that we started a non-profit which was a co-working space and incubator. As we developed the project, it became Quartier artisan, a Québec-based non-profit craft incubator. As I was working with artisans growing their businesses, I really wanted to partner with a company that could help accelerate the revenue growth of these artists, and I thought Simons would be ideal. They are located in Québec, and they sell the entire spectrum of what an artisan could make, from homewares to clothes and accessories. 

In 2017, I was interviewed by Gérald Fillion for Zone Économie on ICI RDI about the work that we were doing with Quartier artisan. During the interview, I mentioned that I wanted to work with Simons. A few weeks after that interview, La Maison Simons reached out, and Fabrique 1840 was launched in October 2018.

What is the most exciting part of your work?

I really enjoy two things. The first is meeting the artisans and designers. Most of the time, I would meet with them online because they were all over the country, but a few times a year I would travel and meet with them. A lot of them became my friends along the way. These meetings helped me understand why I was doing what I was doing, as I came to understand their businesses, practices and visions. 

I also enjoyed designing and creating the structure behind the project. I have an engineer’s brain, and I’m very organized, so working with the IT team to develop something which could meet the needs of different stakeholders was something that I really enjoyed.

What is your biggest challenge?

One of the biggest challenges was probably operating a platform for a retail company that allowed the suppliers to be responsible for inventory. On one hand, it’s easier because the suppliers manage the product. But it can be challenging when there’s an increase in sales and you’re working with artisans who make small batches or one-of-a-kind items. So we developed a way to let artisans decide their own capacity and maintain their vision without becoming overwhelmed. I’m really happy about that because it allows us to support the artists’ creativity. 

Another challenge was that unfortunately, because everything was virtual, we couldn’t touch the objects, which is something that I think is very important when it comes to craft.

Tell us a brief story about an object you have worked with.

Through the years working with Fabrique 1840, I developed a passion for textiles. Especially objects like quilts and tufted rugs and wall hangings. I really love the materiality of a piece on the wall that looks like a painting but you could actually touch it because it’s textiles. I’m really interested in acquiring a one-of-a-kind piece that would be a large tufted or quilted wall hanging.

Cécile Branco is motivated by quickly understanding the challenges of an environment and finding solutions to transforming it into an innovative project. She is the co-founder and former director of Fabrique 1840 by La Maison Simons, an online store for Canadian designers.

This article was published in the Fall/Winter 2022 issue of Studio Magazine.